These new licences are issued under new FCA regulations brought about by open banking & Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2). The aggregation licence(s) gives Bud and its banking partners API access to customer data from the nine biggest banks in the UK, on the request of users. The payment licence means that, on a customer’s request, Bud can initiate a bank to bank transfer, allowing users to spend money in new ways and move money around their accounts via the Bud platform.

The focus at Bud has always been to bring the whole financial services market under one roof, offering customers seamless ways to interact with any financial product. We are distributing our platform into financial institutions, like banks, meaning this will potentially change the experience in the banking apps people are already using (check out First Direct makes it personal with open banking).

Getting both these licences is another step towards building a better banking experience for customers. We will work with our marketplace partners to facilitate deeper integrations for the benefit of everyone.

Bud’s regulatory experience has been pretty unique up until this point. We’ve participated in two regulatory sandbox cohorts, we’ve become one of the first dual open banking licence holders which adds to Bud’s other regulatory permissions: facilitating introductions for credit, investment, mortgages and non-investment insurance products.